Crash kills 3 children

GREEN COVE SPRINGS -- A road that residents call scenic but dangerous claimed the lives of three children Monday.

The head-on collision happened when a westbound sport utility vehicle crossed the center line, hitting three eastbound cars on Florida 16 just west of the Shands Bridge, which links Clay and St. Johns counties, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Five others were injured in the crash, which happened at 12:20 p.m.

The Toyota SUV, driven by Elmer R. Polite, 66, of the 2900 block of Castnet Court in St. Augustine, veered into the wrong lane, setting off a deadly chain reaction on the two-lane road, which curves sharply just before the bridge.

After tearing into the side of a white minivan and striking a black minivan, the SUV flipped, ejecting 8-year-old Victoria Brandt, who was killed. She was not wearing a seat belt.

Another passenger, 3-year-old Jazelle Coffman, sustained only minor injuries. Both girls lived at the same Castnet Court address, according to Florida Highway Patrol reports.

Two children riding in the white minivan also died: Michael Buttafuoco, 5, and Ann Marie Buttafuoco, 3, of Stroudsburg, Pa.

"The whole left side of the vehicle was ripped off, and their (car) seats ... actually came out," said FHP spokesman Bill Leeper.

Their mother, Lisa Buttafuoco, 32, was seriously injured and taken to Shands Jacksonville hospital.

Passengers in the car, Anne and John R. Fiore of South Wantagh, N.Y., received minor injuries.

The black minivan flipped and slid into a swale on the opposite side of the road but did not seriously hurt the Donatelli family: Ernest, 36, Michele, 35, Nicholas, 7, and Isabella, 2, all of the 2500 block of Willow Creek Drive in Orange Park.

After rolling, Polite's SUV hit a fourth vehicle, a Dodge truck driven by Mark Rosales, according to the accident report.

Rosales, 34, and passenger Sarah Fiore, of West Palm Beach, were also spared serious injury.

In all, 14 people were involved in the accident; 12 of them were wearing seat belts.

The crash investigation is not yet complete, Leeper said.

The road, and the Shands Bridge, which links Switzerland with Green Cove Springs in Clay County, was closed for about four hours. About 2 p.m., police had drivers stuck on the bridge turn around and drive back out to Florida 13 in St. Johns County

In 2004, two people died in two separate accidents on the Shands Bridge itself. Their cars were hit and thrown into the St. Johns River. Safety improvements have since been made to the bridge.

Residents of Susan Drive wish they could say the same about the road leading to the Clay side of the bridge.

The accident was heard, if not seen, by residents of the road, which lies at the foot of the bridge, just a few hundred feet from the impact.

She ran out the door dressed only in pajamas and dashed down the street without shoes, knowing her daughter was riding home in a neighbor's dark red SUV.

At the center of the road lay a crushed red SUV.

"I've never been so frightened," she said. "I thought, my baby's in there."

But the excruciating moments belonged to two other families.

The grandmother of one of the victims parked her car at the other side of the bridge in St. Johns County. She took off running across it before an FHP officer could stop her.

The two-lane stretch of road, which has become burdened with increasing traffic as the suburbs grow, pairs a steep bridge with a blind curve -- a deadly recipe, said Williams and her neighbors.

"Almost everyone on our block has been hit," said Pat Knoff, another Susan Drive resident.

Her own niece, she said, was injured by a drunken driver in the same area.

Impatient drivers often gun their engines to be the first to cross the bridge, said Knoff, 63.

"You can hear them hitting the gas ... to get on the bridge first," she said.

After picking the broken glass out of her feet and hugging her daughter, Williams said she and her husband would lobby the Florida Department of Transportation for a second time for a flashing light at the curve and a lower speed limit.

Speed limits now alternate between 45 and 55 mph.

"We need to take our grief and anger to DOT and get them to do something," she said.

The residents, accustomed to the rumble of busy afternoon traffic, remarked on the eerie quiet of the street as they watched workers unload a stroller from the overturned minivan before attaching a wrecker's chains.